Sontag and Hardwick: The History of Criticism

I think there's a variety of structural and irreducibly personal factors in place to why there has not been a Sontag or a Hardwick sense. But again, I would say that Sontag becomes another kind of connective force for people to think and talk about the history of criticism over the past 50 to 70 years. However, it also means that at the end of the day, these essayists become less important. It is a little bit difficult to imagine somebody giving a shit that somebody who published his essay, speak in the New York Review of Books, traveled to North Vietnam.